When they arrived at Starfire City’s train station an hours and a half later, Kain was a lot more confident with a dependable weapon by his side.
If anything, he was in a rush to go into the wild and give its effects a test run.
However, before he could do so he had to let the train staff know that he and Bridge would not be returning.
They wouldn’t be able to receive even a partial refund, but he still had to let the staff know for safety’s sake.
The train is large and fast enough that 99% of spiritual creatures would be obliterated if they stood in its way. However, the remaining 1% are the absolute pinnacle in strength. Monsters that can cause natural disasters with their skills.
Although unlikely for the train to be attacked by such a creature, it has happened in the past.
In the slim chance that the train would be attacked on the way to Brightstar City, he would not want to be responsible for any staff or rescuing beast-tamers to get hurt or delayed from helping others because they were looking for him on the train, not knowing that he had already disembarked.
Therefore, it was standard practice to inform train staff of your whereabouts if you will not be where they expect in the event of an emergency.
Before setting off they would need to pack various supplies. They hadn’t planned for a trip into the wilderness when they had left for the entrance exam.
After receiving directions to a nearby shopping center, they purchased the necessary supplies. Thankfully, Bridge still had the space ring, to carry all of their supplies and weapons.
When they were about to leave, Kain spotted beautifully designed bracelets in the window. He imagined the grievances of his younger siblings after missing out on time with him and Bridge before they left for college.
He called over Bridge and they began to pick out bracelets they felt would match their younger siblings.
They had also picked out bracelets they liked for themselves. There was also an option to customize the bracelets, so they decided to add their new names.
After contemplating for a while, they also decided to add blank nameplates to their siblings’ bracelets that they could engrave with their names, and potentially a shared last name, if they choose.
The bracelets would take a few days to finish, so they paid half of the bill in advance and would pay the rest when they came back from the wilderness.
After buying all the necessary supplies, He and Bridge headed towards the eastern gate of the city, the direction the train had come from.
The plan was to follow the train tracks back towards the direction of Dark Moon City until he hopefully felt something again.
“I felt the pull nearly two hours ago. So based on the speed of the train…that position was around 130 to 150 miles from the city.” Kain gulped, even with the improved constitution of a beast tamer, walking that far would take at least three days.
Fortunately, based on the massive size of the Empire, far larger than even the largest continents back on Earth, it was common for individuals to rent spiritual creatures to help with travelling.
At a certain level, most beast-tamers would have made sure to have at least one suitable mount. However, not everyone had the opportunity to do so, whether due to their talent limiting their number of contracts, or their affinity not being suitable to form a contract with a mount.
The two headed to what looked like stables near the gate and managed to rent two Black-iron, white-grade mounts; Night Mares. They were a pitch-black horse species without much, if any, combat power. However, their pitch-black coats allowed them to blend seamlessly into the darkness of night.
Additionally, although not the fastest species, they were well-known for their endurance and ability to carry heavy loads. They were the chosen carriers for merchants carrying cargo on long-distance trips.
With a mount, they may be able to reach the designated area within two days, or by tomorrow night if they didn’t rest at night or run into any attacks.
They took out their armours and weapons from Bridge’s space ring in order to respond to any sudden attacks.
When they were fully prepared, they then mounted their rides and set off.
Bridge kept glancing at Kain’s spear from the corner of his eye. He could tell that it was of extremely high quality but he couldn’t figure out when Kain had bought it. He had left Dark Moon weaponless, and then when they arrived at the southern region he had given him that spear to store.
“Did you buy that spear from a merchant on the train? It looks really high quality”
Kain just nodded awkwardly, he couldn’t come up with a better story.
Thankfully, Bridge just accepted his words and didn’t question him further.
Majority of the journey was uneventful. Which was unfortunate for Kain since he was hoping to complete some of the hunting missions on the way.
They had only received a single attack from a red-grade spiritual creature, a lightning-attribute bird-type Shawk, which Kain was able to easily dispatch with a quick thrust of his spear to its head when it swooped towards him. He hadn’t even needed to test any of the spear’s effects.
Around the 7th hour into their trip he saw several prints and guessed that a group of spiritual creatures may be nearby.
Wanting to test the spear’s effects he told Bridge to wait there and followed the prints to a clearing where a group of 7 red foxes were playing around. He could feel the rise in temperature even from where he stood. Ignifoxes. A bronze-quality species. Given that they were all adults they should all have red-grade spiritual power.
If Kain eliminated this entire group he should be able to almost complete the mission of hunting 10 red-grade creatures.
Slowly creeping towards the clearing, he inputted his spiritual power into the spear causing a dense cloud to form, which he directed towards the playing foxes.
Immediately, the foxes stopped their antics and began to group together vigilantly.
Bea was already in the cloud and had quickly managed to infiltrate the group when they breathed in the mist.
‘Yes! It works.’
Then Kain began to experiment with something else he had wanted to try. He told Bea to focus on interfering with the foxes’ senses and causing hallucinations.
While she did so, Kain tried his best to manipulate the mist into denser shapes in some spots, trying to make them think that there was the location of the attacker. It just looked like a denser blob of mist.
‘It’s harder than I thought to create shapes’
Kain wanted to continue experimenting, but the foxes all died within a minute.
*Ding. Host has killed 7 red-grade spiritual beasts*
‘That was over way to fast. I should also probably train Bea’s restraint. Otherwise, she may end up killing one of my classmates accidentally in the future.’
Since the Mission Board has opened, he noticed that he no longer instantly received the GP. Instead, it seems as though if there was a relevant mission available, then the GP will be given once the mission is completed. However, Kain did not mind the delay since he would ultimately receive more GP from the mission.
It would only be a problem if it was a mission that took an extremely long time to complete. Then it could be months or years before he saw any GP.
After removing the valuable materials from the foxes, he returned to Bridge and they continued on their journey.